


snippets from a story i will never write

by wakandawinterprincess



Category: Black Panther (2018), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2019-09-06
Packaged: 2019-10-01 11:30:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 24
Words: 4,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17243441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wakandawinterprincess/pseuds/wakandawinterprincess
Summary: What the title says. Little teases and glimpses of stories for Shuri and Bucky, stripped of context, so that readers can fill all the spaces in between. Shorter thanmoments. Arguably just as (bitter) sweet.





	1. naiveté

_“You’ve seen inside his head, princess. But what do you know of his heart?”_


	2. To Life

“I didn’t know you were old enough to drink.”

Shuri raises a single brow, and her next words nearly make him spit his drink out.

“Well, I didn’t know senior citizens were _allowed_ to drink. Bad for one’s delicate health, or something like that.”

He coughs down a laugh before he smirks at the jab, at the _shade_ of it all.

The princess hasn’t changed one bit. Not that he’d have it any other way.

Bucky raises his glass to clink with hers.

“Point taken. To life, then?”

She smiles back, and _god_ , he’s missed the beautiful curve of her lips.

“To life.” she agrees, and that’s that.


	3. Lies

“I never loved you.” He’s lying through his teeth, now.

He has no _choice_.

Shuri looks stunned. Takes in a shaky breath, before she replies -

“Well, I _did_. And maybe that was my mistake.”


	4. grief

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A sort of epilogue to the most recent fic [insatiable](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17201840)

 

Word of the Captain and the Queen sleeping together spreads through the palace staff, fast.

 

No one can believe it, least of all Ramonda, who needles Shuri's personal guard about the same.

 

"Are they...?"

 

Ayo nods. All the confirmation anyone could need.

 

The Queen Mother frowns.

 

"But didn’t she love _Ingucka_?"

 

She nods again, a bit more somberly this time.

 

"Grief does strange things to people." she murmurs. 

 

As if that explains it all.


	5. goodbye

“Shuri…  _please_. I’m begging you. _Don’t_.”

 

She gives him a wistful smile. He knows, in that instant, that it’s too late.

 

Her mind is already made up.

 

She swallows thickly. Brings one trembling hand to cradle his face and gives him a watery smile, doing her very best to look brave.

 

“You look cute when you’re worried,  _Ingucka_. I only wish I’d told you before.”


	6. forgive

"Forgive me." 

"For what?" 

 

"For giving your heart another burden to bear." 


	7. obliviate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A patient in the Birnin Zana Psychiatric Hospital struggles to remember. But the ghosts of the past aren’t always so forthcoming.

_Winter of 2025_

_Birnin Zana Psychiatric Hospital, Wakanda_

* * *

 

Shuri has been here for Bast-knows-how-long.

 

Not alive, exactly, but not dead, either.

 

 _Asleep_ is a good word for it. _Existing_ , arguably, is another.

 

There’s a pretty young nurse who sees her sometimes. Tries to help Shuri jog her memory, but she can’t remember a thing. She feels like she’s floating in space, barely tethered to reality. To this place called Wakanda.

 

She’s had another frequent visitor. A man named T’Challa.

 

He says he is her brother. Shuri wishes she could remember that on her own.

 

But he’s kind and sweet and strong, so she doesn’t mind when he visits, even when he tells her stories she can’t remember.

 

She wishes she could wipe off the look of heartbreak on his face when he narrates a story, only to realize the same. But he keeps a brave face, and she feels the low, warm tickles of affection for him when he does.

 

Even if he’s still a stranger to her, in a strange, haphazard way, she _knows_ he cares for her. And that’s enough.

 

* * *

 

 There’s another man she remembers sometimes, though she’s had yet to voice memories of him to the nurse or T’Challa.

 

A white man. Long, dark hair, and kind, sad eyes. The loveliest she’d ever seen.

 

Shuri can't remember the name of the color, but it reminds her of the sky and the sea at once. Stillness and storm, wrapped in one.

 

She sees his face in bits and fragments. Occasionally, finds herself overcome with heady, giddy happiness and affection that she doesn’t fully understand, followed by a sharp feeling of sadness.

 

But that’s all.

 

* * *

 

 

Shuri just wants a resolution. To either remember it all, or forget entirely.

 

Not this purgatory of in-between.

 

It’s after a particularly long visit from T’Challa — their longest yet —that she gets her first inkling of just _what_ might be up.

 

The nurse hooks her up to something that’s supposed to make her sleepy. (It does its job very well, too.)

 

Faintly, Shuri registers T’Challa and the nurse move to a corner of the room to talk quietly.

 

“And what will happen when she _remembers_?” T’Challa asks, an anxious bite to his voice.

 

The nurse gives him a sad smile.

 

“When she remembers what happened — it will _devastate_ her. Shatter her very emotional core.”

 

A pause, and then —

 

“We can only hope to try and be there, to catch the pieces as they fall.”

 

Shuri hears her brother — strong, _unbreakable_ T’Challa — begin to cry.

 

And as she listens to his quiet sobs, she can’t help but wonder just _what_ it is that she’s supposed to remember that will be so devastating.

 

Just _when_ the memories will come back.

 

* * *

 

Her last thought before falling into unconsciousness is one word: 

 

 _Blue_.

 

Yes. That's right.

 

His eyes were _blue_.


	8. secret

“How long have you known?”

 

“Since the very first time.”


	9. fast

In an instant, he lifts her up, and then he's got her pinned to the wall, her smooth legs wrapped around him.

 

“Too fast?” he murmurs into her neck.

 

Shuri laughs.

 

“I’ve wanted you for so long, _Ingucka_. You need to _hurry up_.”


	10. persuasion

" _Shuri_."

 

She can hear the break in his voice, the desperation.

 

"We _can't_."

 

She moves closer, anyways. Hears his breath catch, in spite of himself.

 

"But that's just it, James. We _can_."

 

 


	11. anger

 

“I’m not interested in being your charity case, princess!”

 

“And  _I’m_  not interested in another ‘brother’, Barnes!”

 

Shuri steps forward. Jabs a finger in his chest, eyes blazing with righteous anger.

 

"So. _Ingucka_. What's it going to be, huh?"

 

 


	12. simple

“Has there… been someone else?” 

 

Shuri laughs at that. Strokes his cheek fondly.

 

“No.” she says, simple and direct.

 

“Just you. It’s _always_ been you.”


	13. hero

"Trying to be a _hero_ , Barnes?"

 

 

"I never wanted to be anyone's hero.

Just hers."


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> snippet of an upcoming story: a foreign princess and a soldier spend a single magical night traipsing around new york city.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I AM actually gonna write this story. Just not yet. LOL

“Your last night on American soil, and you choose to spend it with me?” 

Her dark eyes sparkle, even as her voice tinges with something akin to amusement. 

“ _ What gives _ , soldier?”

He meets her flirty, teasing gaze with complete seriousness.

“You are beautiful, and you intrigue me.” he says simply.

Bucky moves half a step closer then, all but closes the distance between them. Notes, in the back of his mind, the  _ delicious _ way her breath catches, as he leans down and rasps  _ oh-so-gently  _ in her ear– 

“ _ What other reason would I need? _ ”


	15. aphelion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An AU set in the sixties where Shuri is one of the black women brought in to work on the space program and Bucky is one of the astronauts. The connection is instant and Bucky pines after her, but she’s reluctant because she feels a need to prove herself and getting with him will spark rumors how she got on the program (not to mention the times they live in) but he continues like the lovesick fool he is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Teaser for a SpaceRace!AU I wanna write.
> 
> Basically: think John Glenn/Katherine Johnson, but for Winterprincess. Boom.

The first time Shuri meets soon-to-be astronaut James Buchanan Barnes is…  _unusual_ , to say least.

It’s six weeks into her new job at the NASA space program. She’s a human computer in the Space Task Group here in Virginia, working to send him into orbit around the planet.

Except, of course, said task is far easier said than done. The Russians figured it out, so surely the Americans could, too. But sheer nationalism had gotten them little in the way of results so far. And Shuri couldn’t help but worry that maybe, just  _maybe_ , they might never make it.

But now was no time for that. Meeting James Barnes today was supposed to be a not-so-subtle morale boost for the team, a much-needed break from work. To meet the man who they’d be helping send into space … well, that ought to be  _just_  the kind of thing to revive their spirits.

The numbers are fascinating, of course. But one can only look at the numbers for so long, she figures. Even someone who loves them as much as she does.

So that’s how she finds herself that afternoon, lined up with the rest of the black women on the tarmac. They’re grouped here as one small unit, positioned so far behind the white men and the white women working on the space program that they might as well not be here. Unsurprising, all things considered, but Shuri finds that she’s still angry. Just enough.

From a distance, she can make out the outline of him in his suit, smiling and shaking hands of the engineering team. The rest of his team and his security detail trail him, and she can see the way their eyes darken when they catch sight of her team.

She knows, in that instant, just  _what_  his security detail thinks of the whole situation. For a moment, with the way they suddenly crowd near him, she thinks he might not come over to see them, after all.

But she’s wrong. He looks past their shoulders and catches sight of her team. And maybe she imagines it, but he locks eyes with her. Holds it for a second, if that, but it feels like eternity.

And it’s that first little catch, of his gaze meeting her own, that takes her breath away.  _Wow_.

He walks over, then, beaming at her, at all of them. Shakes the hands of a few of the ladies in front of her, which gives her a chance to look at him.

And she  _really_  shouldn’t be ogling him but  _damn_!  she can’t help herself. He’s so incredibly handsome up close, she thinks, that it’s just not _fair_. The man is immediately arresting, in that sharp, all-American way that men like him look.

But there’s also something very  _gentle_  there. She feels instantly safe.

It’s the smooth, slight rumble of his voice that catches her attention next, when he asks –

“Hello. What do you ladies do for NASA?”

Shuri doesn’t know what possesses her, in that moment. Literally  _anyone else_ could answer this question.

But  _she_  blurts it out, instead.

“We calculate your trajectory, longitude, and latitude, sir. To the hundred-thousandth place.”

And yeah, Shuri’s been around her own white, male colleagues long enough to know that such an outburst should merit some kind of annoyance on his part. 

So she’s surprised to see that he  _grins_ , instead.

“Well. That makes me feel a lot better. I can’t get  _anywhere_  without the numbers.”

“You sure as hell can’t.” she agrees, and mentally, she wants to slap herself for being so impulsive again.

This conversation is already going on far too long. What the _hell_  is she doing?

His next words break her thoughts –

“What’s your name, miss?”

She hedges for a moment, wondering if it’s even  _proper_  to give him her name, before she answers –

“It’s Shuri. Shuri Udaku.”

He smiles again. Sticks his hand out for her to take.

“Well. It was damn nice to meet you, Miss Udaku.”

She smiles. Shakes his hand.

“It’s nice to meet you too, James.”

“ _Please_.” He laughs, and she hates how much she likes that sound, too. “Just call me Bucky.”

And before she can even register what he’s doing, before she can get grips with just  _what’s_  happening, he pulls her hand close. Leans down, and presses a quick kiss to the back of her palm.

Ordinarily, she’d brush it off as friendly, nothing more. But the way his blue eyes gaze up at her now, the feel of her heart beating away in her chest so rapidly she thinks it just might  _burst_ , tells an entirely different story.

And then, the moment is over. He tosses her another beautiful, dazzling grin, and then he’s off, floating out of reach like a breeze from a dream. A handsome,  _annoying_  dream.

Shuri scarcely notices the way the women around her giggle and gasp at his forwardness. Pays no attention to the awed, quiet murmurs that ripple through their small group.

No, she’s just focused on the tingle in her hand where his lips had been. How the sensation danced across her skin, so long after he’d left.

She rubs her hand back against the hem of her skirt, hoping the feeling might just go away.

 

The sensation remains.


	16. tell me again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr prompt from @hydras-white-wolf

“Tell me again.”

Shuri grins at his request. Leans in close, like she’s about to disclose a precious secret.

“I love you.” she whispers. “Asshole.”

There’s no heat in that little jab. So Bucky grins, too. Pulls her fully into his lap.  

“Mhmm.  _Again_. ” he murmurs between hungry kisses on her neck, drawing a pretty laugh from her lips.

“ Won’t you tire of hearing me say it,  _Ingcuka_?”

The words come out breathless, teasing, yes. Yet somehow, she sounds so  _very_ earnest.

So Bucky pulls away his attentions from her neck.  Tugs her closer then, so her legs tighten around his waist, so he can feel her breath hitch as he catches her eyes, as he leans in to say –

“From you?  _Not ever_.”


	17. are you drunk?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr ask prompt for @malaiika :)

It had been a long time since Bucky had a day off. He hadn’t really had much planned - just a day of wandering the palace and the city, dinner with some of his old friends from the village, then going to bed at a somewhat reasonable hour. 

Boring? Maybe a little. But at over a century old, he thinks he’s had quite enough excitement in his life. A day of rest comes as a relief.

What he didn’t expect, however, was a very …  _giggly_  princess, decked out in little more than a slip dress, knocking at his door at one in the morning.

“Hello,  _Sergeant_ …” she coos from the doorframe, and even from a few steps away, he can smell the alcohol on her breath.

He’s seen her go out and party before. As her bodyguard, he’d had his fair share of all of that. But this… this was  _different_. Immediately, he’s on edge.

“Shuri.” He tries to keep his voice even. Tries to make sure he doesn’t give away how damn  _worried_  he is. “Are you drunk?”

Shuri puts on a look of mock outrage. Sticks her hands on her hips, even as she sways in place.

“So what if I am,  _hmm_? Can’t a girl have a night off?”

Even drunk, the girl can argue. He tries to not let the exasperation make its way back into his voice.

“ Yes, you  _can_ , Shuri. But not this  _much_.”

Another moment, and then the realization hits him –

“Did you sneak out?”

Shuri has the self-awareness to look a  _little_  guilty, then, her pretty features settling into a childish pout.

“  _Yes_.” she whispers, and Bucky hates himself for thinking about just how adorable she looks, in that moment, when he should, in fact, be  _furious_.

His one day off as her bodyguard, and she sneaks off?  _Bast_.

“You shouldn’t have  _done_  that, Shuri.” he admonishes her, though he’s pretty sure his words are falling on deaf ears. “And you shouldn’t be here, either.” he adds quietly.

“ Why  _not_?” she murmurs, and though she’s still swaying in one spot, he can see a tell-tale gleam of mischievousness in her eyes.

 _Bast_. She’s going to be the death of him. Really, she is.

And he’s been stunned speechless by her words, so she takes the opportunity to move  _closer_ , her hands suddenly holding onto his lapel and pinning him in place. 

“ Maybe, just  _maybe_ , I  _wanted_  to be here. At your door. Tonight. Have you tried thinking about that,  _Ingcuka_?”

Bucky closes his eyes. Inhales. Forces himself to still, even though his heart is suddenly  _racing_  for a thousand different reasons.

“ I don’t  _want_  to, Shuri.” he grits, hoping that’ll get her to drop this. Make this whole thing go away.

Because this is too much, too fast, and she doesn’t know what she wants. She  _can’t_.

“ And why  _not_?” she whispers. He looks down now to see that her eyes are suddenly brimming with angry, petulant tears.

“Why do you think I’ve been drinking so much,  _hmmm_? I **needed**  it. To have the courage to even tell you this.”

She looks right at him, and in a moment of clarity, he realizes her intentions are  _unmistakable_. 

“ I _ **want**_ you. Drunk or not.” 

Shuri lets one hand graze his cheek, trace out his jaw, before she whispers – 

“And I  _know_  you want me, too.”

At last. There it is. Out in the open.

And he’s so taken aback by how succinctly she’s summarized her feelings, feelings he never was  _quite_  sure she shared, either, that he doesn’t back away when she closes her eyes, when she leans in  _dangerously_  close, but suddenly –

“ _Wait_.”

He leans back. Moves half a step away from her.

“Shuri. We  _can’t_.”

His next words are so soft they’re basically a whisper –

“Not now, Shuri. Not like this.”

Because she deserves better. Better than a drunken kiss that she’ll forget when the morning comes. 

Deserves better, he realizes, than _him_. Or any of the baggage he comes with. No matter what she  _thinks_  she wants.

He needs to stop this. For once and for all. 

Then the words are out before he can stop them –

 

“Not  _ever_.”

 

This time,  _she’s_  the one who steps back. Hell, she practically jumps back, like she’s been burned.

 

At last, the tears she’d so carefully held back slip out. The sight of her like this – so vulnerable, so _sad_ – makes him feel like there’s a knife being twisted into his chest.

 

Oh, god. What has he  _done_?

 

She wipes her tears away. Inhales slowly, to steady herself.

 

“You’re right. I’ve had too much to drink.”

 

Her lip is trembling, but she puts on a brave face.

 

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come.”

A deep breath, and then a shuddering sigh – 

 

“Good night.”

 

And before he can so much as say another word, she slips around the corner, like the evanescent whispers of a forgotten dream.


	18. Come here

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr dialogue prompt - " Come here."

Shuri collapses under him as her orgasm rolls over her in waves, arms still locked over her head, chest heaving with each breath.

 

Bucky pulls himself out and gathers her in his arms, rolls them over so she can recover against his chest with a happy, dizzy purr of satisfaction. “ _ Ingcuka… _ ”

 

He kisses her, then, because he can't help himself when she calls him that and because he's still hungry for her,  _ more _ of her. She obliges, letting her lips part and moaning into the kiss, a sound that sends a flash of heat right to his core. But it's not long before she breaks away to nuzzle his jaw, leaving behind small, teasing pecks.

 

“ _ Shuri _ .” he huffs, half joking and half serious. “I'm not done with you.” 

 

“ _ Mmm? _ ” she murmurs, still floating, still dreaming. 

 

It takes another moment, but then she looks at him with a tell-tale sparkle in her eye, the same look she gets when she wants to  _ test _ something. And he knows, in that moment, that he's not about to get his way so easily. 

 

Shuri grins cheekily at him, bites her lower lip in anticipation of her experiment. Then, she simply lets a finger trace a teasing, feather-light path down his chest. Watches intently as she pulls out a low, needy groan from somewhere  _ deep _ within his chest. Fuck.

 

And her effect on him is  _ really _ too much, because in an instant he's got one arm around her waist and the other locked around her hip, pulling her close to him. 

 

“What did I  _ say _ , Shuri?” he murmurs. “ _ Come here _ .”

 

The  _ greed _ in his voice sends a shiver down her spine, and she grins into a new, heated kiss. She grabs his other hand and bring it down to her hip, and he takes it as his cue. 

 

Bucky adjusts her hips and presses into her again, something slow and aching and  _ delicious _ . She shudders, rocks her hips against him once because she's ready. 

 

Then the last thing he remembers before his mind goes blank and he loses himself completely is the feeling of his hands on her ass as he guides them into a steady rhythm, one that has her giggling and moaning in turn.  


	19. inevitable

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tumblr prompt: their first kiss from @annenkhen

Shuri closes the door behind them. The lock clicks shut, a soft, neat little noise. 

Just like that. Like it’s always been  _inevitable_.

Bucky turns to face her now. And even in the dim light of her room, it’s clear that something in her eyes has  _shifted_. His heart jumps into his chest.

The way she’s looking at him, now – he wants to remember it  _forever_.

She tugs him closer, then. He lets her, leans his forehead on hers until she closes her eyes, closes the space between them.

And when her lips finally meet his, he forgets the world. 

There’s just  _her_. Only her.


	20. Chapter 20

For the first time in a long time, when Bucky enters the room, all he sees is _red_. 

The kidnapper. Where _is_ he?

He spots him in an instant, and then it's all over. 

 

Bucky strides across the room and lifts him clear off the ground. The man makes an ugly, choking noise, but that doesn't stop Bucky from slamming him _even_ harder, left arm already pressing down on the man's  neck. He takes in the sight of him struggling with a sudden, lucid moment of detached ease -- more like The Soldier than he's been in a long, long time.

The thought should terrify him. But it _doesn't_.

In fact, he hardly considers it. Focuses on contemplating the smooth efficiency of this soon-to-be kill, until new words pull him out of his own head -- 

 

"Ingucka, _no_! We need him alive!"

 

Ah, yes. The princess. The only one who could ever halt the soldier and the man both. The very _reason_ he's even here, now. 

He should let the idiot go. Take her into his arms, pull her close. Revel in the fact that she's _alive_ and safe and unhurt. 

But he _can't_. Not with this insect still untaken care of. 

"Really?" he manages to spit out. "He _hurt_ you, Shuri."

He thinks back to all the torture she's been put through in the past two days. The starvation, the stripping, all of it. How her kidnapper had brought her to her knees, made her _beg_ for mercy. 

 _God_ , it's such a simple choice. Really, it is. 

Bucky squeezes the man's neck tighter. Her former assailant flails and writhes pitifully, clearly no match for the strength of the vibranium arm. 

"I'm pretty sure your brother would let me kill him, you know." 

Shuri grits her teeth. Makes her next words commanding and firm -- 

"And I am not my brother, Barnes. Set him _down_."


	21. prosecution

"I won't say it again.  _Step aside_ , your Highness."

"Not until you tell me _what's going on_ , Secretary. Your soldiers just shackled a man under _my protection_. So I would choose your next words wisely."

Ross grimaces at that, though that seems to be his default response to most thinly-veiled threats these days. 

"Fine." he clips. "He has to hear it now, so you can, too."

The older man turns to Bucky, now, and Bucky swears he sees a trace of malevolent glee on the man's face before he says --

"James Buchanan Barnes, you are being extradited on behalf of the US government to answer for your decades of work on the behalf of the entity formerly known as HYDRA, attempting to kidnap and extort a Wakandan national, and for committing crimes against humanity." 

 

Shuri's jaw drops.

 

"What the _hell_ are you talking about? James didn't--"

 

Ross cuts her off.

 

"I'm sorry, princess. I know it's all very confusing now, but rest assured -- 

Barnes is a _traitor_ , and he will be punished as such." 

 


	22. hurt

 

News of the broken engagement between Shuri and Esihle travels far and wide, as do the whispers of his infidelity.

The princess handles it with grace. But Bucky _knows_ she's nursing a broken heart.

 

He's her bodyguard, after all. Nothing slips past him.

 

"Am I so hard to love?" she whispers to him one night, and he can _hear_ the pain in her voice.

 ** _No_** , he wants to tell her. _Loving you is the easiest thing in the world._

 

But of course, those are words that he simply _cannot_ say.

 


	24. heart

"Saying the trigger words -- that doesn't work on me anymore." Bucky snaps. "So don't bother."

  

"I'm not saying the words for _you_ , Sergeant." Zemo smirks, and Bucky resists the urge to slap it right off his face.

 

He's grown tired of this man quickly. Tired of him reciting shitty Russian to his face, tired of him pacing the room like a madman, tired of him pulling the strings of an invisible game for the last few months. 

 

"I know I can't mess with your head, James. "

 

He pauses his pacing, then. Turns, and gives Bucky a look so _piercing_ that it makes his blood run cold.

 

"But your _heart_? Now that's different, isn't it?"

 

Bucky freezes. Because what Zemo is implying... no, he can't _possibly_ mean -- 

 

He grabs Zemo by the collar now. Slams him up against the wall, all previous inhibitions forgotten, before hissing out his next words -- 

 

" **Shuri**. _Where is she?_ "

 

She'd been at the conference in Berlin this weekend, surrounded by a dozen of the Dora's finest. Okoye had been the head of her security detail. Hell, Shuri had been joking with him just hours before, showing him her newly-upgraded personal security systems.

 

She had to be fine. _Right_?

 

 

Zemo grins, and Bucky can see the blood in his teeth. The Baron ignores his question entirely, just leans in real close to whisper --

 

"Does she know that you love her?" and the unexpected frankness of the question hits him so hard that Bucky drops him to the ground.

 

And of course, that's all the answer anyone could need.

 

 

Zemo hardly reacts at all, just chuckles darkly. "Oh, I sure hope she does. The poor thing deserves _something_ to cling to, after what she's got coming for her."

 

Hearing Zemo talk so flippantly about Shuri, about _hurting_ her -- something inside him snaps. That dark anger of the Winter Soldier, one that has been curdling in his blood for _days_ now, comes back in full force. Bucky grabs Zemo again, snarls right in his face -- "Why the **_hell_ **are you doing this?"

 

He needs to know. This -- this goes beyond anything he's ever seen. This isn't even strategic -- it's just _sadistic_.

 

Zemo grins, and in that moment, Bucky knows he's _won_.

 

"I've always been ten steps ahead of you and Wilson, Soldier. You're too late to stop me, so let me just make it _clear_ now -- 

 

I'm going to kill the princess of Wakanda. And I'm going to make it look like _you_ were the one who did it."


	25. impulse

“Do you want to…” she starts, and he can still catch the slightest touch of hesitation in her voice. 

She’s giving him an out. It’s not too late to take it, yet.

(But he’s well past the point of rational thinking, isn’t he?)

Bucky leans forward, then. Takes Shuri’s drink from her, puts their glasses of whiskey delicately down on the table. Mentally counts down the allotted seconds he has left to think straight.

He’s going to make a mistake, he  _ knows _ he’s making a mistake. 

But after seeing her tonight, he knows he can’t bear the distance between them. Not any longer.

“Come here,” he murmurs, and that’s  _ it _ ,  _ fuck _ , that’s it. Shuri scoots onto his lap, kisses him like she’s been wanting to do it for the last five years they’ve been apart, and  _ fuck _ , Bucky knows the feeling.


End file.
